{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3175", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3175, "subject": "Baptising the Little Gods", "messages": 5, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-04-19T19:55:02+00:00", "last": "2002-04-20T17:41:33+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-04-19T19:59:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Baptising the Little Gods", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"James Jordan\" \n Anyway, all this stuff in the Briah books is metaphorical for\nsymbolic (in some senses) Christian notions, not a nod toward literal\nHindu\nones." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But Catholicism is full of nods toward \"literal Hindu\" ideas.\n\n\nBut I should not say \"Hindu\", but rather \"Indo-European\" - since the legend\nstream that gave us the Norse and Celtic gods has a common root with the one\nthat gave rise to Hinduism.\n\n\n\nOne of these \"nods\" is of course the resurgent Mother Goddess, Mary.\n\nAnother is the bubbling profusion of Little Gods - who in Catholicism are\ncalled Saints.\n\nAnother is the whole Matter of Arthur, and its cognate legends in other\nEuropean cultures.\n\n\n\n\nCatholicism is (at least in human terms) a fusion of the\nmonotheistc/judaistic root meme that arose in the eastern mediterranan with\nthese older ideas, from North/Central Asia.\n\nAs Christanity migrated away from its jewish roots and migrated north into\nEurope it accreted these old patterns of belief and thought and\nChristianised them - or, if you are a believer, you may chose to say it made\nthem Holy.\n\n\n(I am urgent that you should not see this post as an attack on your\nreligion, for it is not. Though I am an athiest, I was Christian once, and\nI believe that only those who love the Christian religion can truely\nunderstand Wolfe).\n\n\n\nThe Briah cycle is profoundly about Little Gods, and the way their false\ngodhood becomes a friend and figure of the True god.\n\nIt bears repeatedly on the process by which humans become Little Gods - as\nPas did, as Severian did, as Silk did, and as (we might say) - and, even\nmore, and even more puzzlingly, it bears on the truely divine process of\n*making that holy*.\n\nI put it to you that this process is at the roots of Catholicism.\n\n\n hartshorn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-04-19T19:55:02+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Re: Baptising the Little Gods", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wow.\n\nHartshorn said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Briah cycle is profoundly about Little Gods, and the way their\nfalse godhood becomes a friend and figure of the True god.\n\nIt bears repeatedly on the process by which humans become Little\nGods - as Pas did, as Severian did, as Silk did, and as (we might\nsay) - and, even more, and even more puzzlingly, it bears on the\ntruely divine process of *making that holy*." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, this is very clearly _one_ thing these books deal with (and\n5HC doesn't, which is a strike against its inclusion)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I put it to you that this process is at the roots of Catholicism." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Now, there I (as Wolfe's fellow-Catholic) have to demur. That the\nCatholic Church uses such \"accretional\" methods to baptize what is\ngood in local cultures and religions into Catholicism, there is no\ndoubt; that some of the saints (like Brigid, alas!) are probably \nlegendary figures made out of local deities, I will agree. If I \nrecall correctly, an effort was made in the '60s to \"purge\" at \nleast some of the more clearly fictitious saints from the list.\n\nBut.\n\nThe Saints are not \"little gods\"; catholics are forbidden to worship \nthem in any way. They -- the real ones, at least, if not those who are\nbased on older legends -- are servants of God. They are \"one with\" us \nby the \"Communion of Saints,\" the unity that Christ prays for His \nchurch to possess (see John's account of the Last Supper); they are\nbelieved to intercede for us with God, not by any power of their own,\nbut the same way that Christians alive today pray for each other. (The\npractice commonly referred to \"praying to saints\" is really asking the \nsaints to pray for us.)\n\nAnd, most importantly, they are not saints because of their own\negotistical attempts to elevate themselves to Godhood, but because of\ntheir devotion to something beyond their own egos. Typhon-Pas is an\n_anti_-Saint; rather than being elevated for his submission to God,\nhe refuses to submit to anything and elevates himself to false Godhead.\n\n--Dan'l" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-04-19T23:31:01+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Baptising the Little Gods", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Dan'l Danehy-Oakes\" \nAnd, most importantly, they are not saints because of their own\negotistical attempts to elevate themselves to Godhood, but because of\ntheir devotion to something beyond their own egos. Typhon-Pas is an\n_anti_-Saint; rather than being elevated for his submission to God,\nhe refuses to submit to anything and elevates himself to false Godhead." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes. But don't be defensive. I am not atttacking.\n\nWhat is Wolfe saying? Does not Wolfe's fiction accept and transform the\n\"little gods\" - and perhaps accept that as the universe ages its greater\nchildren will be more and more tempted to this status, and need this\nredemption?\n\nYou may find this a threat, but does Wolfe, who is so wise?\n\nGod might work this way. **really**. In the objective, primary, world.\n\nThat is what Wolfe is writing about, after all.\n\n\n hartshorn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-04-19T23:22:28+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Re: Baptising the Little Gods", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "hartshorn wrote:\nYes. But don't be defensive. I am not atttacking." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sorry. On another list I'm dealing with a serious anti-Catholic\nwho seems to think that Jack Chick tracts are Revealed Truth. A\nbit of the defensiveness seems to have slipped across to here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What is Wolfe saying? Does not Wolfe's fiction accept and\ntransform the \"little gods\" - and perhaps accept that as the\nuniverse ages its greater children will be more and more tempted\nto this status, and need this redemption?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yeah. And one of the things I've been thinking, but need to \nreread it first, is that one-of-the-many-things-Long-Sun-is,\nis a story of the redemption of Typhon/Pas. Or maybe not..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "You may find this a threat, but does Wolfe, who is so wise?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I suspect he'd get very upset if you called him wise. 8*)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "God might work this way. **really**. In the objective, primary, world." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Might, heck. If God can make use of scum like me and, doubtless,\nGene Wolfe, he can make use of somebody like Typhon. (Or, as Eru\nsays to Melkor, \"this, too, shall result in the greater glory of\nmy work.\" Or something like that. I hate having a lousy memory \nfor quotations...)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-04-20T17:41:33+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Baptising the Little Gods", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Dan'l Danehy-Oakes\" \n(Or, as Eru\nsays to Melkor, \"this, too, shall result in the greater glory of\nmy work.\" Or something like that. I hate having a lousy memory\nfor quotations...)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As you note, it was Tolkien who started this game, with his Ainur: but Wolfe\napproaces it from the other end. Pas and his family are the very pattern\nof the brawling, horny, quarreling, pagan gods of Greece, Rome, or the\nNorthlands, not JRRT's attenuated bunch of thumb-sitters.\n\n hartshorn" } ] } ] }